|
The American cellist, David Finckel, born into a family of cellists, began his musical studies with his father, Edwin Finckel, a leading jazz musician of the Big Band Era. Growing up in Madison, New Jersey, he started studying music with his father at the age of 5, and at 10 took up the cello. At the age of 15 he made his debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra in Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations as winner of the orchestra's junior competition, and two years later returned to capture the senior division prize and another appearance with the orchestra, playing the Robert Schumann' Cello Concerto. Formative experiences also included his early contacts with Alexander and Mischa Schneider, with Felix Galimir through the New York String Orchestra, and with prominent musicians of the Philadelphia Orchestra through his teacher, co-principal cellist Elsa Hilger. At 17, he played for Mstislav Rostropovich, and soon after became the great cellist's first American pupil. His studies spanned a nine-year period, culminating in a performance of Prokofiev's Sinfonia Concertante with the Sinfonieorchester Basel under Mstislav Rostropovich's direction. He was the first winner of the New England Conservatory Piatigorsky Artist Award, chosen from an international field for his excellence as soloist, chamber musician, and teacher. In 1979, he became a member of the award-winning Emerson String Quartet.
David Finckel performs and records frequently in collaboration with pianist Wu Han, whom he married in 1985. Since the 1990's, the two artists have toured widely year-round and have emerged as one of the most popular cello-piano duos on the musical scene today, appearing on the major chamber series in the USA and abroad. Finckel and Wu Han also often appear in concert with violinist Philip Setzer.
Recent appearances as orchestral soloist include Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto with the Slovenia Symphony Orchestra, Dmitri Shostakovich's First Cello Concerto and L.v. Beethoven's Triple Concerto with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, as well as performances and recordings of the Dvořák's Cello Concerto and Augusta Read Thomas's Ritual Incantations with the Taipei Symphony Orchestra, John Harbison's Cello Concerto with the Albany Symphony Orchestra, and Haydn's Cello Concerto in C Major with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra.
In the spring of 1979, David Finckel attended the Alice Tully Hall debut of his new friends, the Emerson String Quartet, and was soon asked to join the ensemble. His first concert with the quartet was in his birthplace: Allentown, Pennsylvania, on October 6, 1979. As a member of the Emerson String Quartet from 1979 to 2013, he participated in over 30 acclaimed recordings on the Deutsche Grammophon label since 1987, was the recipient of nine Grammy Awards (including two for Best Classical Album, three Gramophone Awards, the coveted Avery Fisher Prize, Musical America's “Ensemble of the Year” and cycles of the complete L.v. Beethoven, Béla Bartók, Felix Mendelssohn and Dmitri Shostakovich string quartets in the world's musical capitals. In 2016, Universal Music Group reissued the Emerson's entire Deutsche Grammophon discography in a 52-CD boxed set. He ended his tenure with the quartet at the conclusion of the 2012-2013 season. He was replaced by Paul Watkins. The other members of the ensemble include violinists Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer who alternate in the first chair position and violist Lawrence Dutton. The Emerson Quartet took its name from the American poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson.
During the Emerson's years of significant development, from 1980 to 1985, David Finckel's life was altered by yet another professional association, when he met and performed with Taiwanese pianist Wu Han. Musically as one from their first encounter, their personal relationship developed steadily, and they married in 1985. The partnership inspired him to renew his commitment to the solo and duo literature, and in 1985 he captured, partnered by Wu Han, the first NEC Piatigorsky Prize, competing in the triple roles of soloist, chamber musician, and teacher. In an award ceremony in New York in 2012, they received Musical America's Musicians of the Year award.
In addition to his work as a performer, David Finckel has established a reputation for his dynamic and innovative approach to the recording studio. In 1997, Finckel and Wu Han launched ArtistLed, classical music's first musician-directed and Internet-based recording company, whose catalogue of nineteen albums has won widespread acclaim. BBC Music Magazine saluted the launch by featuring the company's debut album on the cover of its January 1997 issue. Finckel is a controlling participant in every aspect of the recording process, from selecting the repertoire and recording venue to setting the sound, running the sessions, constructing the edits, and determining the final mix. ArtistLed's Grammy Award-winning recording engineer is Da-Hong Seetoo.
In 2003, David Finckel co-founded Music@Menlo, an annual chamber music festival and institute in Silicon Valley that brings to the San Francisco Bay Area a lineup of accomplished musicians, scholars, educators, and musicologists, as well as a roster of gifted young artists, for an immersive three-week chamber music experience in the summer. The $2.1 million annual budget supports over sixty-five public events each year; total annual attendance now exceeds 13,000 with free program attendance exceeding 6,000; nearly 300 artists have come from all over the world to perform in the main-stage concerts, lead multimedia Encounter lectures, coach students of the Chamber Music Institute, and work with Menlo School students in the annual Winter Residency; 378 Chamber Music Institute participants have enrolled in the program to date; and 253 interns have gained real-world professional experience from Music@Menlo's industry-leading Arts Administration Internship Program. Finckel was instrumental in the formation of Music@Menlo's live recording series, Music@Menlo LIVE, which commercially releases live recordings from the festival each year. The label was launched in 2004 and has been praised as "probably the most ambitious recording project of any classical music festival in the world" (San Jose Mercury News). Close to one hundred live recordings have been released to date. Performances from the festival air nationwide on American Public Media's Performance Today, the largest daily classical music program in the United States, which airs on 260 stations and reaches more than one million people each week.
In 2004, David Finckel and Wu Han were appointed Co-Artistic Directors of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York City, where they currently present around 200 concerts, lectures, master-classes, and outreach events each season. The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center is recognized as one of the leaders in the field of chamber music in North America. In 2013, Finckel & Wu Han were invited to extend their appointment for a third five-year term, the longest tenure since that of founding Artistic Director Charles Wadsworth. Since becoming Co-Artistic directors, the projects they have directed and initiated include: programming the CMS seasons; expansion of the Bowers Program (formerly known as CMS Two); the creation and growth of CMS recording labels; international partnerships and expanded touring; establishing performance and educational residencies across the USA; commissioning and awarding of the Society's Stoeger Prize for composition; expansion of the Society's online presence via live-streaming of over 25 events per season; expanded national radio broadcasts to 52 shows per year; and the creation of new series such as Late Night Rose and the Quartet Series. They have also directed their attention to expanding the organization's activities internationally with the establishment of residencies and concert series, including the Mecklenburg–Vorpommern Festspiele in Germany; Wigmore Hall in London; Teatro Mayor in Bogota, Colombia; White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg, Russia; Bach Inspiration in Taipei, Taiwan, and a teaching and performing residency with the Casual Classic/LG Chamber Music School in Seoul, South Korea.
In the USA, the residencies they have established include the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts; Drew University in Madison, New Jersey; Harris Theater in Chicago, Illinois; St. Cecilia Music Center in Grand Rapids, Michigan; the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia; the Performing Arts Center at Purchase College in Purchase, New York; Saratoga Performing Arts Center in Saratoga Springs, New York; the Chrysalis Chamber Music Institute at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; and Shaker Village in Pleasant Hill, Kentucky.
Intent on expanding the presence of chamber music in Asia, in 2011, David Finckel assumed the Co- Artistic directorship of Chamber Music Today with Wu Han. An annual chamber music festival and institute with performances at venues including the IBK Chamber Hall of the new Seou Arts Center in Seoul, South Korea, the organization brings to the Far East the world's greatest chamber musicians.
For two decades, with the Emerson String Quartet, David Finckel taught at the University of Hartford's Hartt School. He joined the faculty of Stony Brook University in 2002 as a member of the Emerson String Quartet; today he continues to coach chamber music there, lead master classes, and provide instrumental instruction. He has presented master-classes at venerable institutions throughout the world and for many years taught alongside the late Isaac Stern at Carnegie Hall and the Jerusalem Music Centre. He participates in various educational outreach programs across the country. David Finckel and Wu Han created the Chamber Music Institute at Music@Menlo in 2004. The institute offers a rigorous professional training ground and a wide array of performance opportunities to gifted young musicians who have been selected from conservatories, youth orchestras, and music programs nationally and internationally. In 2009, under the auspices of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Finckel and his wife established a chamber music training workshop for young artists in Korea and Taiwan, intensive residency programs designed to bring student musicians into contact with an elite faculty of artists including pianist Leon Fleisher and violinist Arnold Steinhardt and have been instrumental in the expansion of the society's CMS Two program that invites outstanding young musicians from around the world through audition to join the CMS artist roster for an extended residency that includes both performance and educational outreach opportunities. Under his leadership, the residency program has expanded from two to three years and has greatly increased the level of participation of these young artists. |
